Scrivenor wins CWA New Blood Dagger

Hayley Scrivenor’s Dirt Town (Macmillan) has won the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for debut fiction in the UK Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) 2023 Dagger Awards.

CWA judges described Scrivenor’s crime novel—which centres on a missing child case in a rural Australian town—as a ‘haunting mystery.’

George Dawes Green won the Gold Dagger for The Kingdoms of Savannah (Celadon). Among other winners are John Brownlow, who won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for debut thriller Agent Seventeen (Hodder & Stoughton); Wendy Joseph, who won the Gold Dagger for Nonfiction for Unlawful Killings: Life, love and murder: trials at the Old Bailey (Penguin); and D V Bishop, who won the Historical Dagger for The Darkest Sin (Macmillan).

Two other Australian authors were on the New Blood Dagger shortlist alongside Scrivenor—Emma Styles for No Country for Girls (Little, Brown) and Patricia Wolf for Outback (Bonnier)—while Aotearoa (New Zealand) author Michael Bennett was also on the longlist for Better the Blood (S&S).

Winners were announced at a ceremony in London on 6 July. The full list of award recipients is published on the CWA website.

Category: Awards Local news